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The Cubs are considered one of the frontrunners to sign free-agent righthander Yu Darvish.
Or, if you choose to believe this, they already have:
Darvish to Cubs done deal after being evaluated by team docs #scoopcity
— Carl (@barstoolcarl) December 21, 2017
Within a short time, two mainstream reporters had posted denials on Twitter:
The report that the Cubs have signed Yu Darvish is false according to reliable people .
— Bruce Levine (@MLBBruceLevine) December 21, 2017
Source close to negotiations tells me NO DEAL has been agreed to between Yu Darvish and the Cubs. Complete nonsense. Nothing has happened since the two sides met on Monday.
— David Kaplan (@thekapman) December 21, 2017
That brought this response:
I'll go to war with baseball writers over my sources any day of the week and twice on Sunday. The most dangerous thing in the world is a man with nothing to lose.
— Carl (@barstoolcarl) December 21, 2017
And then Darvish himself chimed in:
#fakenews https://t.co/he5qmoqhcx
— ダルビッシュ有(Yu Darvish) (@faridyu) December 21, 2017
In recent days Bruce Levine has been all over this story, correctly tweeting about the upcoming Cubs/Darvish meeting before it happened. But this seems much ado about nothing, just another chance to discuss this possibility.
I’ll say that I hope the Cubs do eventually complete this signing. Yu Darvish would be an excellent fit for the Cubs, give them the strongest rotation in the N.L. Central (and one of the best int he league) and make them favorites to win their third straight division title. If they do sign him, of course the length of the contract and dollars involved would be important, because the Cubs still need more relief help and (probably) a veteran backup catcher.
As always, we await developments.